Nelson’s Revenge (Mad Cow, take 48)

Ami Parekh (Co-President) reminded council that the Log will be closed for the rest of this year, but council, the Deans, and the log committee are working on a long-term solution. Todd Rogers (Co-President) congratulated the newly elected JA co-presidents for next year, Craig Tamamoto and Laurel Bifano. He also announced that the new athletic director will be Harry Sheehy, the current Varsity Basketball Coach.

Ryan Mayhew (Treasurer) announced that in the past week, CC received $500 back from Garfield Republicans due to an outside donor, but also discovered that council hadn’t transferred $500 allocated in the fall into In Hymn’s account. In other words, we’re still at -$4,500. Ryan asked that council only allocate another $2,000 total for the next two weeks to allow for nationals, stress busters, and other end-of-the-year events.

Stephanie Pirishis requested recognition for the newly-formed bridge club. The goal of the club is to gather students together to both play and learn bridge. Council voted to recognize the club: 22-0-1. If you are interested in learning more about the club, please email 02sap.

Grace Pritchard of the Riding Club came to ask for money to go to an invitational tournament at Dartmouth. The club has done better than they have in a long time this year, beating Amherst on their way to be the fourth in the region. Because they’ve gotten so highly ranked in their regular season, the Riding Club has been invited to this tournament. Todd voiced his support for funding the tournament, because this technically falls under post-season play. Funding passed 21-1-1.

College Council funding is divided into subgroup allocations and General Fund allocations. At the beginning of a group’s existence, it must ask council’s approval for each item on its budget, and this money comes out of the General Fund. Once a group has been around for a while, in order to streamline its funding, CC moves it into a subgroup, and those allocations are determined at the beginning of each year.

Before the bylaw changes approved this year, groups would automatically move into subgroups. The current bylaws, however, mandate that groups must be voted into the subgroups. So Ryan asked council to consider the placement of the following groups: Hawaii Ohana, Dancing Folk, Sankofa, MHINDS, In Hymn, Culture Counter, Mad Cow, Lit Society, Psalm 96, and Indigenous Voices.

Ami impressed upon council the importance of voting groups in – once a group is in a subgroup, council is essentially saying that it approves the funding allocations given previously to the group, and the group will continue to be funded that way for as long as it exists. Nishant Nayyar (At-Large) and Joe Masters (Secretary) were both concerned about the possibility of the Mad Cow entering a subgroup, given the controversies over its funding in the past year. Shenil Saya (At-Large) argued that CC shouldn’t be in the business of judging the value of a group’s work, and that if CC voted to keep the Mad Cow out of a subgroup that it would imply a subjective judgement of the group. James Moorhead (Class of 2001) suggested that we keep all of the groups out of subgroups and retain as much control as we can over funding. David Thal (Williams) disagreed, arguing that there is a reason for moving most of the groups into subgroups because they are mature groups, but that contentious nature of the Mad Cow’s funding over the past year makes it a good candidate for another year of being directly overseen by CC. James proposed that we leave all groups out, but the vote failed 3-17-3.

Jeff made the comment that there are some groups that are more high-profile than others, and that we’re making a quality judgement in singling out the Mad Cow. Laddie Peterson had a problem with the fact that the Mad Cow didn’t have many writers for its fall issue, and there’s a problem with giving 9-10 people $1000 for producing an issue. Nancy Walworth (Perry/Bascom/Brooks/Chadbourne) suggested that we remove the Mad Cow for now, and invite them to speak at next week’s meeting. Council then voted 15-7-1 to remove Mad Cow from the proposal, and voted 13-9-1 to put the other groups into subgroups.

The Appointments Committee met again last Sunday to recommend members for the Goodrich, Housing/B&G, and Log committees. The list of appointments is listed on the cc web site. Council voted 20-1-2 to approve the recommendations.

Nishant says that no forward movement has happened in the push for student trustees, but there has been a bit of debate about whether student trustees are a good idea at all. Some cons that Nishant raised: student trustees don’t have a lot of perspective because of our age, and that we might not be able to put aside conflicts of interest concerning improvements that would happen beyond our years at Williams. Elizabeth Moulton (Prospect) asked if the student trustees would vote, and Nishant replied that it would depend on how the board reacts to the proposal. Joe Masters, while not personally opposed to student trustees, felt that the board doesn’t discuss many issues that would be relevant to students, and in those issues regarding student life, the board already does get opinions from the Dean of Students and the President. Nishant replied that the board does vote on matters that are relevant to student life, and without students being on the board, we don’t know if they handle issues properly. Ben Angarita voiced his support for student trustees, and added that he feels a diversity of opinion and experience would benefit the board of trustees – short-term students with different goals would be good for the board. Nishant wants our voice to be heard at meetings of the board, and if you’re interested in helping him, email 02nn.

Jon Wiener wants to put free communal bikes on campus. But he doesn’t want them to be stolen. So in the fall, he conducted a research project on how free bike programs work around the world. Basically, the way to make the system work is to have some way to secure the bikes, and have everyone who wants to use the program sign up for it to get access to the bikes. The bikes could be secured either by $5 cable locks or by significantly more expensive (and safer) bike lockers. Everyone in the program would be given a key that would unlock all of the bikes. The University of Southern Florida does it this way, and it works without much theft or damage there. Wiener estimates that for the cheaper lock solution, and 30 bikes, the system would be about $165 to start, and if it’s a success, Williams can scale it up. If you want to help, email 02jaw.

Todd spoke about Napster and Mascot. Though the network has been crippled and slowed lately, it turns out that Williams’ ISP, not Napster, is to blame. Napster usage is actually under control, thanks to more responsible users and a new software package that Mark Berman (Network Systems Administrator) installed that prioritizes use of bandwidth. But it’s still a potential problem, so keep trying to reduce your use of bandwidth by going one song at a time, only using the network at night, and remember to close Napster completely when you’re done. In addition, OIT should be tripling the amount of bandwidth that we have for next fall. Also, the Mascot committee has reached a decision, and although it hasn’t been publicly released, it should come as no surprise to the campus.

Ben Angarita has been wondering lately why there aren’t more students coming from inner city and underrepresented high schools. He feels that there are lots of high school kids who don’t know about Williams, but might know a student at Williams. So Ben would like for the "outstanding Williams students" to write personal letters to their high schools, encouraging high schoolers to come to Williams. Students only need write the letter – Admissions is entirely behind this project, so once the letter is written, Admissions will address it, stamp it and make sure it gets there. So if you are, or know an outstanding student, please email 03bna to get details on how to participate in this project.

12 Anti-Napster opinions

1 opinion supporting the New York Times distributions on campus.

2 opinions about the constitution requirements for student groups.

Gideon Lee (MinCo) was upset that the deadline is only two weeks out, and that this limit doesn’t give groups an adequate amount of time to create a decent constitution. Ami added that even such "small" issues as deciding how to lay out a group’s office selection process might take months. Liz asked how groups were supposed to find out, and why the deadline had to be so soon. Rich responded that the deadline was set because the policy is currently set to begin in the next school year, and that he did put in a daily message and tried to send an all-campus email. Rich also stressed the fact that the college feels that it has to have this measure in place; Tufts and Middlebury are going through court cases right now over discriminatory practices of their college clubs.

After discussing possible options that council had on this issue, and hearing Rich emphasize that the Dean’s Office isn’t just out to screw the students, CC decided to send Rich, Ami, and Todd to the Deans. Their goal will be to try and work out another deadline date to allow groups to write thorough and accurate constitutions, with the suggested date of the last week in Winter Study (2001).

Mike Barkin came to speak to council about the latest developments in the Committee for Priorities and Resources. The mission for this year was to redevelop the capital plan for the college, concerning the next 10-15 years of budget allocations for major campus improvements. Major items on the horizon are Stetson (the organizational disaster), Sawyer Library, Baxter, and the Athletic Department (fitness center, field house, and athletic fields). Hopefully AD Sheehy will help decide in what order these developments should be done. Next year there should be some major open discussions about what else should be developed in the next years around campus, so remember to weigh in your opinions then. Finally, Mike told council that student members of existing committees will get a chance to speak with the board of trustees before one of their meetings. Hopefully this discussion will let student opinions be heard on the board’s allocations of money.

Lately we’ve been having some trouble reaching quorum on council (23 members are required for voting), often postponing votes until more members show up. So, in a game we call shame-the-cc-rep, here is a list of the members who were MIA last night: Ed Rossier (JA), Hall O’Donnell (East/Fay), Anne Lanford (Gladden), Benjamin Finholt (Off-Campus), Terri O’Brien (Mills/Thompson), Laura Almstead (Carter), and Mayo Shattuck (Class of 2003).

Joe Masters

Council Secretary

wso.williams.edu/cc